Cathie Wood’s ARKK has trailed BTC, S&P 500 since inception

NewsWed, 26 Aug 2026 17:40:24 UTC1 hour ago
Cathie Wood’s ARKK has trailed BTC, S&P 500 since inception

Cathie Wood’s flagship fund has spent more than a decade failing to beat her two most obvious benchmarks.

Her multi-billion dollar ARKK fund, which launched on October 31, 2014, has trailed the S&P 500’s total return, and BTC, since inception.

Even investors who might have tried to time their entries and exits out of Wood’s funds would have had a difficult time finding a slice of outperformance, as Ark Invest also underperformed most calendar years across that timespan.

It was easy for ARKK to outperform BTC during particularly bad years for the asset. For example, it crashed 73% in 2018 or -67% in 2022.

However, Wood’s pro-Tesla, pro-BTC, pro-AI, and pro-gene editing fund failed to beat its benchmarks over the long haul.

Cumulative returns over the full stretch, October 31, 2014 through yesterday’s close, are 318% for ARKK, 23,214% for BTC, and 367% for the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested.

S&P 500 Total Return versus ARK Innovation ETF (yellow) since inception. Source: TradingView

Trailing the market despite a decade of work

Although it’s embarrassing for any fund manager to work full-time for a decade only to trail a passive, labor-free investment in the S&P 500, ARKK’s 49% shortfall actually fails to illustrate how bad the past five years has felt for investors in Wood’s ETF.

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